


lying dead on my knees

by intimatopia



Series: i once fell for your soft hands [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Haircuts, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intimatopia/pseuds/intimatopia
Summary: There are two weeks to Christmas break. Auguste is hanging up decorations when Laurent comes home (because the DeVeres have never been anything other than crazy) and he takes one look at Laurent’s new hair and rolls his eyes. Laurent stands in the doorway, still warm for a moment. In love.
Relationships: Auguste/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Series: i once fell for your soft hands [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895647
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: RelationShipping 2020





	lying dead on my knees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HandmaidenOfHorror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandmaidenOfHorror/gifts).



> i hope you like this!
> 
>  **this fic stands on its own** _but_ it has a sequel (which is @ 6k as i post this) which contains more development/a happier resolution for laurent. it also contains a lot of things i'm not sure about gifting another person, so it'll be posted when authors are revealed. i apologize for the wait.

His mother brushes his hair. It’s long, so long it takes seconds to settle every time he moves his head. Almost perfectly straight, fine gold strands. She loves it more than he does. She pins it up into a tight bun and it hurts and he doesn’t say a word.

It’s a quiet that serves him well. At dance classes and in school, he’s perfect and pretty. He’s also _wrong,_ unfitting in a way he doesn’t have a name for.

The wrongness burns his throat. It’s like living inside a house on fire. He doesn’t know until later that he’s supposed to be able to breathe.

At night he turns the name he was given over and over in his mouth until it tastes like smoke.

But it never stops tasting bitter.

Auguste is seventeen when he learns to drive, and takes them both out for ice cream after dinner. They pick out the flavors together and Auguste makes them swap halfway through so they both get some of each.

It’s late when they return, so late everyone is in bed. Everyone except their uncle, working in the living room. “Aurelia,” his uncle says, eyes lingering on him like wasps. “Auguste.” Nods crisply, like he’s done his job, and Auguste laughs nervously and tugs him up the stairs behind him.

Later that night he opens the door to Auguste’s room, never unlocked because they’re the only people on the second floor, and sits down on Auguste’s bed. “Hey, shrimp,” Auguste says sleepily. “Couldn’t sleep again?”

He can’t remember the last time he slept properly. He nods in the dark where Auguste won’t see and pokes at him until he lifts the blanket to accommodate both of them.

“I don’t like my name.”

Auguste shifts, throwing an arm around him. It’s heavy and comfortable. “Why’d you say that?”

“Because I _don’t._ ” He’s afraid most of all that Auguste won’t believe him. _Aurelia is such a lovely name. So rare, and so pretty. Just like you._

Auguste hums, considering. “So pick a different one,” he says at last. “And I’ll call you that.”

“I don’t know what to pick,” he confesses.

“Paula,” Auguste suggests, and gets punched in the side for it. “Okay, not that one. Lauren?”

“ _Laurent_.” He likes the sound of that, hesitates for a second. “Laurent can be a girl’s name.”

“Sure it can,” Auguste agrees, sounding bemused and sleepy. “If you want it to be.”

A year later Auguste is gone, and Laurent crumbles bit by bit. Everything erodes at him—dance classes, his friends, his mother—

His uncle.

“I’ve seen how you look at him,” he says, and Laurent doesn’t know how to go on. He wants to feign ignorance, but he’s not that good of a liar yet.

Or maybe that’s not how it happens. Maybe the desire comes after the pain, or it really has always been there, which means there is something wrong with _Laurent._ Something rotten in him that deserves the pain.

(That deserves being pushed to his knees, the frantic ache of eating the wrong thing.)

It makes him sick and dizzy to think about, but sometimes the thoughts won’t leave him. Sometimes he turns his face into the pillows and daydreams about it, gut clenching, heat blooming and turning to ice between his legs.

He wants, and he can’t ask the right person for it. He curls around the desire and warms his hands on it.

It’s not like he’s not smart; he knows what happened. He knows all the right words. He just doesn’t _care._ He doesn’t always manage to convince himself he deserves it, because it hurts too much and he hates the pain more than he hates himself, but—he thinks. He’s always wanted something awful. He can’t rightly complain when he gets it.

His uncle’s nails bite into his wrists. _Never tell,_ he murmurs, and Laurent agrees. He won’t tell. He’s not the telling kind.

Anyway, it’s almost a mark of how _good_ he is, that he can take it all and keep quiet. No one thinks he’s good, and he doesn’t believe it himself, but he clings to his suffering like a raft in a storm. No one thinks he’s good. His tongue is too sharp, and he refuses to make friends. He tears into the ones he has until they leave. He’s cruel to those who try to come near him, and the only person who can even have a conversation with him without coming away stinging is his brother.

No one thinks he’s good, not even Auguste. Auguste is many things, but he isn’t a fool. But even when everyone thinks he’s bad, Laurent and his uncle know that’s not true. They know he can be quiet, which is another word for _good_.

When Laurent hates himself, he turns his anger outwards. When he hates his uncle, he turns it inwards, and forces himself to pleasure until he cries silently into the pillow.

Backwards, but when has Laurent ever done anything the right way around?

He’s not a girl, which is a truth he came to far too late to force down everyone’s throat, but he does his best anyway. When his uncle tires of him, Laurent gets worse. Louder. Insists on a haircut and the right clothes and snarls at anyone who tries to second-guess him. The servants don’t dare try, and his father only rolls his eyes.

His mother cries over his hair. She cries and cries and he lets her, frozen. Quiet. _Good._

Laurent is fourteen, but Auguste picks him up that night and drives him out for ice cream. Laurent twirls a finger through his blond curls and stares at his brother through the yellow light in the shop. He’ll never look like that, no matter how much he wants to.

Does he want to?

“Will you miss my hair too?” Laurent asks quietly. His ice cream is melting, untouched.

Auguste is guileless. Laurent has never failed to read him. He looks saddened by the question, and loving in a way Laurent rarely associates with himself. “Not really,” Auguste says slowly, which is how Laurent knows he’s telling the truth and half-wishes he wasn’t. “Always thought your face would be nicer if it wasn’t all hidden away.”

And Laurent is supposed to _not_ be in love with this man. He looks down, stomach burning with resentment. No one can resist Auguste. Laurent never even tried.

“You made that up just now,” Laurent replies, deliberately flippant. 

Auguste goes red. “I want you to be happy,” he mumbles, like it’s a crime. And it should be. It should be.

The next day Laurent showers. He leans carefully over the basin, stares at his light eyes in the bathroom mirror. Eyes he’s never recognized as his own. But the girl in the mirror lifts a scissor, and there’s a moment where Laurent might have sliced his skin open but it passes and the blades glide through his hair instead. Soft, unassuming _snicks,_ yellow locks drifting to the floor. It takes about half an hour for Laurent to make an unforgivable mess out of it.

He dresses himself, humming quietly, and walks an hour across the city to a hairdresser. “I put bubblegum in it,” he says, wide-eyed and innocent. “Can you make it real short, so I don’t have to come again?”

It’s already real short. The only thing left to do is trim into an acceptable shape. He pays more than it’s worth and walks out, pleased with himself.

There are two weeks to Christmas break. Auguste is hanging up decorations when Laurent comes home (because the DeVeres have never been anything other than crazy) and he takes one look at Laurent’s new hair and rolls his eyes. Laurent stands in the doorway, still warm for a moment. In love.

“What are you looking at?” Auguste calls down.

“There’s glitter on your butt,” Laurent says childishly, and runs to his room.

He stays inside all day, cowardly in a way that’s entirely unlike what he’s made himself into. He scrapes his hands through his short hair again and again, heavier than before and miserable. He wanted this. He still does.

But he’s never been anything other than beautiful, and now he doesn’t even have _that._

His uncle has arrived by the time he comes down to dinner that night. His mother gasps the wrong name in shock, and his father sighs loudly, meeting Auguste’s eyes. Auguste returns an embarrassed little smile. The only empty seat is next to him. But his uncle is on the other side of it, and—

Maybe there’s an upside to not being beautiful.

His uncle doesn’t touch him all night. Laurent smiles like an angel, on his best behavior, and after dessert while the adults are drinking wine and Laurent is on his second helping of chocolate tart, Auguste leans over to press a kiss to his temple. “You _do_ look better like this,” he says softly.

 _But not good enough,_ Laurent thinks at once, and then quashes that bitterness down. He’ll learn to take what he can get. “Thank you,” he whispers back.

**Author's Note:**

> please comment if you enjoyed this!


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